Graduate Courses Fall 2013

CLASS-GA 1009, Greek Literature Survey, M&W 2:00-3:15, David Sider (at NYU)This half of the survey is devoted to poetry from Homer to the Hellenistic period, in which we establish the basic tools for interpreting the poems as poetry: genre, metrics, textual transmission, scholarly tradition from antiquity to the present, performance venues, style, historical setting, etc. The texts are chosen largely but not exclusively from the department reading list.

CLASS-GA 2501, Greek Epigraphy, M 4:15-6:15, Danielle Kellogg (at NYU)This course will concern itself with the study of Greek epigraphy and epigraphic analysis, which is increasingly becoming an important avenue of investigation in the study of virtually all aspects of the ancient Greek world. Main objectives of the course will include familiarizing students with the tools and processes used by epigraphists to assist in the decipherment of Greek inscriptions, introducing students to the major corpora of Greek inscriptions, and investigating major historical issues from an epigraphic perspective.

CLASS-GA 2510, The City of Rome: The archaeology, history and topography of an Imperial Capital, T 4:15-6:15 Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis (at CUNY)In order to understand many aspects of the Roman Empire’s history, economy, cultural mores, literary output and artistic developments, it is essential to understand the capital. This seminar explores the city of Rome from 753 BCE to 410 CE primarily through an in-depth investigation of the art, architecture and archaeology of the capital itself. The seminar will provide a chronological and topographical overview of the city’s development, while focusing on certain aspects of the ancient city each week, including the artistic and architectural programs of the Imperial Fora, public entertainment buildings, and the nature of the capital’s economy. The class will visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Numismatic Society in order to gain a fuller appreciation of the role that material culture has to play in our understanding of ancient Rome. Although this course focuses primarily on the material culture of the City of Rome, students will be required to engage with other classes of evidence, including epigraphy, poetry, historical sources, legal texts and numismatics.

CLASS-GA 2816, Livy, TH 6:30-8:30, Robert Penella (at Fordham Lincoln Center, LC Lowenstein, Room 404)Selections from Livy's first pentad will be read in Latin, the rest in English. We shall consider how the history of early Rome was narrated and what it meant to an Augustan historian. The emphasis will be on historiography, ideology, and literary analysis. The first pentad will be read as a "book" with closure and preoccupation with a number of recurring antitheses (war and peace, monarchy and tyranny, tyranny and libertas, patricians and plebeians, foundation and destruction, foundation and refoundation).

CLASS-GA 2972, Pindar, W 4:15-6:15, Joel Lidov (at CUNY)The first aim of this seminar will be to achieve familiarity with the rhetoric of Pindar’s choral lyric: its structure, its habits of expression, its topoi, its grammar and style, its use of metrical structure. We will also seek to understand the ethical, logical, and emotional appeals by which the poet persuades audiences in different parts of the Greek world to celebrate as a common good the athletic victory of a despot or a member of a wealthy family. By analyzing the Odes as poems continuing the traditions of Homeric, Aeolic, and elegiac poetry, and by confronting the problems they presented to the modern history of interpretation and criticism, our discussions may lead to some insight into how Pindar, in the accomplishment of his rhetorical task, expressed such a persuasive understanding of the human condition that his name became emblematic of poetic power and achievement.For more information, see attached description.

CLASS-GA 3000, Ancient Greco-Roman Education, T 4:15-6:15, Raffaella Cribiore (at NYU)This course will cover questions regarding ancient education from Plato and the sophists to Hellenistic and late Roman times. Students will inquire about literacy in antiquity, the location of schools, the existence of a fixed curriculum from the Hellenistic age on, and the place education (especially upper education) had in society. Particular emphasis will be put on rhetorical education. The course will be based on literary and archaeological sources.

CLASS-GA 3001, World of Late Antiquity, W 5:00-7-30, Cristiana Sogno and Susanna McFadden (at Fordham Rose Hill Campus, Faculty Memorial Hall 416)An introduction for medievalists. The legacy of Gibbon's masterpiece Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has exercised a great and lasting influence on the way in which the world of Late Antiquity is perceived and presented, but the work of Peter Brown and other scholars has offered a powerful alternative to the Gibbonian concept of inevitable decline. The two opposing concepts of "crisis" and "transformation" now co-exist as interpretive frameworks in the flourishing field of Late Antiquity and continue to inspire thought-provoking studies about this fascinating and enigmatic period, which defies easy explanation. The course offers an introduction to the late antique world by surveying the history, art, and culture of the Roman Empire from the third to the sixth century. We shall analyze both primary sources and monuments and examine critically the secondary literature that studies them.

CLASS-GA 3002, Ecphrasis, M 6:30-8:30, David Konstan (at NYU)Although the term “ecphrasis” was used in ancient handbooks of rhetoric to denote a lively or vivid descriptive technique, it has since come to designate the verbal description of a work of art, and this latter sense defines the topic of this course. We will survey Greek ecphrases, beginning with the “Shield of Achilles” in the Iliad and the Hesiodic Shield of Heracles, examine examples of the device in drama and epigram, and carry our investigation down to Roman times with a look at texts by Lucian, Pausanias, the two Philostrati, and Callistratus, among others. Among the questions we will examine are: How is time treated in narrative accounts of static works of art? What aesthetic values are revealed or implicit in ecphrases, and how do they measure up to surviving art works and modern conceptions of beauty and artistic merit? Do ecphrases constitute a literary genre? How do ecphrases relate to or illustrate rhetorical ideals of vividness or enargeia?

CLASS-GA 3004, Greece & the Mediterranean in the Archaic & Classical Periods: Materials, Methods & Debates, T 6:30-8:30, Barbara Kowalzig (at NYU)This seminar is designed to provide a foundation for students in Greek and Mediterranean history and archaeology, surveying historical narratives, problems, debates and methods in studying the archaic and classical periods. We will cover Greece and the Mediterranean from the Dark Ages to Alexander in the light of recent research in Classics, and of contemporary approaches in neighbouring fields, such as modern history, cultural and economic anthropology and the quantitative social sciences. The course will offer an introduction into methodologies for studying ancient texts from Homer to Arrian in a historical perspective, and into Greek epigraphy, and will also include materials from art and archaeology. Examples of topics to be discussed include the Ecology and Economy of the ancient Mediterranean; Transcultural Histories and Global Localities; Economic Growth and Social Mobility in Archaic Greece; Religion, Society and the City-state; Poetry, Performance and History; Ancient Democracy in the Light of Political Science; Athenian Imperialism and Theories of State-formation; Culture, Democracy and Civic Identity in Classical Athens; Fourth-century Federalism and New Institutionalism; Conceiving the fourth-century Mediterranean; Alexander and Patterns of Orientalism, and similar. All students planning to take the Greek history general exams are encouraged to attend; graduates from other disciplines interested in Mediterranean history are also welcome. All ancient materials will be read in translation.For more information, see attached description.

Please note that NYU’s first day of classes is September 3; CUNY’s first day of classes is August 28; and Fordham’s first day of classes is August 28.